Exile :: Literary Analysis, Julia Alvarez

The poetry Exile by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a little girls familys escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the friar preacher Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem starts in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which was renamed for the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo however, it compensatetually changes to New York when the family succeeds to escape. The verbalizer is a young girl who is unsophisticated to the world therefore, she does not know what is happening to her family, even though she surmises that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to equalise swimming and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the line A hurried bag, allowing nonpareil toy a piece, (13) it feels as if the family were exiled or forced to recant its country. The rubric of the poem Exile, informs the reader that there was no choice for the family but to leave the Dominican Republic, but certain words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker unit expresser her feeling about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States. The poet uses four-spot line stanzas or quatrains, and this is a narrative poem because the speaker tells a story. The speaker seems a little odd in a route because she does not know what is happening Worried whispers (6) is an alliteration, and it also symbolizes the speakers anxiety. Both her uncle and get down do not tell the the true to the speaker, or else they Sugarcoat it. This is similar to Emily Dickinsons poem Tell all the truth but tell it slant because the children might get scared if they win the truth right away. In the line What a good magazine shell have learning to swim, (11) the poet again emphasizes how adults lie to children so they do not hurt them. The speaker feels as though her parents are lying to her however, she just now trusts them because she believes that what adults do cannot go wro ng. Also, A week at the beach so papi get some rest (15) sounds as if the speakers father has to leave the Dominican Republic because he is some kind of danger. The speaker struggles throughout the poem because she is leaving everything she has known behind, and she is going to a newfound land that she knows nothing about.